The public deserves answers about Kamala Harris and ’60 Minutes’

Whatever you may think of the Biden White House, the administration accurately quotes President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the transcripts of their official remarks, even when their language is unscripted, inelegant or confusing. I would argue that it’s not the business of the White House to record campaign speeches, given the laws about not using federal resources for political purposes, but at least the transcripts of speeches at campaign events are presented on the White House website “as is,” free of sympathetic editing.
The same cannot be said of the interview with the vice president on “60 Minutes.”
In that interview, conducted by veteran correspondent Bill Whitaker, Harris answered several questions about Israel’s war with Hamas and the administration’s standing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Initially, the latter answer got little attention — CNN summed up the high points of the interview without even mentioning the question; Deseret’s account did not mention it either.
But the concise answer that Harris gave on the show that aired Oct. 7 was not the same as the one she gave in a teaser shown on “Face the Nation” on Oct. 6. And someone in the Trump campaign noticed the difference and pounced.
Former President Donald Trump wrote about the discrepancy on social media and accused CBS of deliberately manipulating the video to make Harris appear “more presidential.” And it’s no surprise that outrage deluged conservative feeds on X, where distrust in media is already high and some believe that selective editing to help Democrats and hurt Trump is all-in-a-day’s work for journalists.
Enough people accused “60 Minutes” of deliberate deception and fraud that the Harris campaign had to weigh in, saying that the editing was done by the network and not at the behest of her staff. A complaint has been filed with the Federal Communications Commission, accusing CBS News of “significant and intentional news distortion.” And The Free Press called for a release of the full transcript, citing CBS’s own standards, which say “answers to different questions may not be combined to give the impression of one continuous response” and “we cannot create an answer merely because we wish the subject had said it better.”
How both candidates speak has been an issue in this campaign cycle — both Harris and Trump are painted by their opposition as prone to meandering “word salads,” and the media has been accused of “sanewashing” both of them.
CBS has not released a transcript as of this writing, but a spokesperson told The Associated Press that Harris said both quotes separately and that no editing had been done to improve her answers. But the “60 Minutes” clips circulating on social media do raise questions. Per PolitiFact, the fact-checking arm of the nonprofit media institute Poynter.org, here is one part of what Whitaker and Harris actually said:
Whitaker: We supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, and yet Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course. The Biden-Harris administration has pressed him to agree to a cease-fire. He’s resisted. You urged him not to go into Lebanon. He went in anyway. He has promised to make Iran pay for the missile attack, and that has the potential of expanding the war. Does the U.S. have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?
Harris: The aid that we have given Israel allowed Israel to defend itself against 200 ballistic missiles that were just meant to attack the Israelis and the people of Israel. And when we think about the threat that Hamas, Hezbollah, presents, Iran, I think that it is without any question our imperative to do what we can to allow Israel to defend itself against those kinds of attacks. Now, the work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles, which include the need for humanitarian aid, the need for this war to end, the need for a deal to be done which would release the hostages and create a cease-fire. And we’re not gonna stop in terms of putting that pressure on Israel and in the region including Arab leaders.
And here is what viewers of “60 Minutes” heard:
Whitaker: We supply Israel with billions of dollars in military aid, and yet Prime Minister Netanyahu seems to be charting his own course. The Biden-Harris administration has pressed him to agree to a cease-fire. He’s resisted. You urged him not to go into Lebanon. He went in anyway. Does the U.S. have no sway over Prime Minister Netanyahu?
Harris: The work that we do diplomatically with the leadership of Israel is an ongoing pursuit around making clear our principles.
Seen like this, it’s understandable that so many people are angry, particularly on the heels of a national conversation about whether the media was complicit in covering up the physical limitations of President Joe Biden.
It is the kind of debacle that hurts everyone involved, regardless of intent. And fair or not, it’s another blow to the credibility of journalists everywhere who are trying to report on the election carefully and fairly.
Yes, all journalism — broadcast and print — involves editing, and there are standards governing this. When, for example, a Deseret News reporter takes a line or two out of a lengthy quotation, an ellipsis indicates that words have been omitted, or parentheses indicate that a word has been changed. Conversations presented in a Q&A format note that that the questions and answers were edited for clarity and length. Video and radio broadcasts also often note whether the interview has been edited or condensed.
Poynter notes that some of the outrage about the “60 Minutes” editing is baseless. Such editing is not, for example, a “major campaign finance violation,” as Trump charged. But it appears to be a violation of the public trust. The interview lasted 45 minutes and 25 minutes of it was cut, which is fine so long as the viewer is informed, and the answers themselves are not pruned and shaped as if they were roses.
It’s said that no one wants to see sausage made, but that should not be true of journalism, especially in an election as fraught as this one. It was an accident of marketing that revealed the discrepancy in these quotes, and it’s fair for Americans to see the portions of the interview that were cut. Each day that goes by without the transcript being released suggests there might be more thorns in it than roses.